The present invention relates to an integrated circuit for liquid crystal display apparatus drive which is employed in a liquid crystal display apparatus (hereafter referred to as a TFT panel) driven at a high potential.
TFT panels have been employed in an increasingly wide range of applications in recent years. This has resulted regarding an intensified effort in technological developments for liquid crystal display system in all technical areas in which image display is required. The need for achieving larger scale and higher resolution display are particularly urgent.
In order to achieve larger scale, it is crucial to increase the scale of the integrated circuit for liquid crystal display apparatus drive and a reduction in the power consumption, since one drive circuit ls required per liquid crystal dot and the number of drive circuits, therefore, increases in proportion to increases in scale and in resolution.
In other technological areas, source voltages for integrated circuits have been steadily reduced in order to reduce power consumption, and at present, the source voltages for most integrated circuits are already down to 2.7V.
However, a drive voltage of approximately 10V is still required for integrated circuits for liquid crystal display apparatus drives, some of which require a large electric field intensity due to the unique quality of liquid crystal drive.
Thus, since a drive voltage of approximately 10V is required to fully realize liquid crystal drive performance, a low voltage portion where signal processing is performed and a high voltage portion where liquid crystal drive is performed coexist in an integrated circuit for liquid crystal display apparatus drive.
However, in an integrated circuit, the pattern area of the high voltage portion is larger relative to the pattern area of the low voltage portion, even when the pattern is otherwise identical.
Consequently, the greatest interest is focused on how the size of this high voltage portion can be reduced in order to achieve a larger scale for the integrated circuit for liquid crystal display apparatus drive.